


The Mystery of the Missing Identity

by Brumeier



Category: Stargate Atlantis, The Three Investigators | Die drei ??? - Various Authors, The Trixie Belden Mysteries - Julie Campbell Tatham & Kathryn Kenny
Genre: Amnesia, Birthday Party, Car Accidents, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, M/M, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 21:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16773352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: She wakes up in a smashed-up car with no memory of who she is or where she was going. But she's determined to solve the mystery of her own identity and get her life back.





	The Mystery of the Missing Identity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vanillafluffy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/gifts).



> Written for: story_works Casefic challenge and hurt/comfort bingo vehicle crash square

The world came back to her in starts and stops, the colors fading in and out, everything blurry around the edges. There was a sharp pain in her head, stabbing into her left eye, and her face was wet. Something was ticking, maybe the same something that smelled…hot.

It wasn’t until she lifted her head that she realized she’d been slumped over. The world dipped and tilted for a moment, making her nauseous, but she realized she was in a car. Her head had been resting on the steering wheel. 

Whose car was it? 

The windshield was cracked, like a big spider’s web made of safety glass. Beyond it was a refracted tree trunk. She blinked at it, trying to get it in focus, but it stubbornly refused to merge into one normal-looking tree.

She tried to remember where she’d been going. Clearly she’d been the one driving, since she was behind the wheel. It suddenly occurred to her that she might’ve had a passenger, and she turned to look at the seat beside hers. It was empty. That was good. Wasn’t that good?

Staying in the car was probably a bad idea. It still smelled hot, and the engine was still ticking, and what if it caught fire?

It took her a minute to locate the door handle, and another minute to shoulder the door open. The effort had her head swimming, but she got it open. Getting out was another obstacle and it took much too long for her muddled mind to realize she was still wearing her seatbelt.

There was another wave of dizziness when she stood up, and she clung to the side of the car until the feeling passed.

“Okay,” she said to herself. She didn’t recognize her own voice. “Don’t panic. You just need to figure out who you are and where you were going.”

Easy enough, right? She pushed back from the car and had to blink a few times to get a good look at it. Dark green SUV, front end crumpled pretty badly. Strange that the airbag hadn’t deployed. The windshield was…was…oh! She leaned in to look for the registration sticker, but there wasn’t one. Where…glovebox.

Moving slowly and carefully, conscious of every twinge and forthcoming bruise, she slid back behind the wheel and leaned across the console. The glovebox had popped open in the crash, but aside from being jostled everything still seemed to be intact. She pawed through a packet of wipes, several travel-sized packets of tissues, a full-sized Hershey bar, hand sanitizer, a broken piece of purple sidewalk chalk, and the owner’s manual before she found the little plastic folder that held the registration.

_McKay, M. Rodney._

“Well, you’re certainly not Rodney. Are you?”

She looked at herself in the rearview mirror, which was hanging at an angle, and it didn’t show much of her face, but she was confident she wasn’t a Rodney. There was blood in her hair and she frankly looked ghoulish. Definitely a woman, though. So maybe she was Mrs. M. Rodney McKay?

There was a tasteful silver wedding band on her finger.

“Mrs. McKay. I’m Mrs. McKay, and this is my husband, Rodney.”

The words meant nothing. She was still a nameless woman. Wait. She was a _woman_. She should have a purse, shouldn’t she? She looked at the passenger seat, and the floor, but there was no purse that she could see, at least not up front. She turned and got on her knees to look in the back.

There was a vacant infant car seat.

“Oh.”

Mr. and Mrs. McKay had a baby. Was she a mother? She looked down at herself, as if she’d see a sign of having been pregnant. Who normally sat in that car seat? A little girl with pigtails? A little boy in overalls?

There was no purse that she could see in the backseat. What she _did_ see was a bag of ice on the floor alongside a child’s storybook, a very tiny white sock, a rolled-up magazine, and a cell phone.

Phone!

She tried to reach over the seat for it but fell too short, so she had to extricate herself from the car once more and get in from the rear door. The screen on the phone was cracked but it turned on when she thumbed the power button. Yes!

A lock screen came up, prompting her to input numbers. No!

There was no way she’d be able to guess a passcode when she didn’t even know her own name. She studied the lock screen, looking for some sort of clue. The battery was at forty-two percent, it was half past one on a Saturday afternoon, and the picture behind the keypad looked like an apple tree. Nothing that would shed light on who she was.

She turned off the phone and stuck in her back pocket before grabbing the magazine. It was an issue of _Kids & Me_ that showed a happy, trendily-dressed family camping on the cover. And there it was, the address of the subscription holder.

_Jeannie Miller_  
_Toronto, Canada_

Canada. Was she in Canada? Was she Jeannie Miller? Rodney McKay’s registration card said California. She went around to the back of the car to look at the license plate. A rising sun with the name of the state emblazoned in front of it. It was also a personalized plate: 1GENIUS.

Rodney McKay certainly thought highly of himself. And it was possible he’s picked up the magazine from a doctor’s office or something. She looked around, seeing mostly trees, and wondered how it was possible to know where in the world she was. 

She didn’t think the car had any more to tell her but popped the back hatch just in case. Couple of those folding camp chairs, an umbrella stroller, an emergency roadside kit, and a box containing emergency thermal blankets, bottled water, Power Bars, and several packages of fruit snacks. Maybe Rodney McKay really was a genius. He was certainly prepared.

“Okay. All you have to do is get to the road. Someone will stop and give you a ride.”

She grabbed one of the water bottles, two Power Bars, and the roadside kit, from which she extracted the safety triangle and the help sign, both of which she’d put on the side of the road so people would know to look for the car there. She also grabbed the chalk and some tissues from the glovebox.

As an afterthought she opened the first aid kit – it was a very thorough emergency kit – and took out the packets of Tylenol. She opened one and swallowed down the two pills, stuffing the other packet in the front pocket of her jeans.

It was easy enough to follow the trajectory of the SUV back to the roadway. She hadn’t gone all that far, but the embankment was a little steep and by the time she’d hiked up it she was short of breath and she thought her head might just crack open from all the pounding. Her chest was sore, which she thought might be from the seatbelt, and her right knee was throbbing.

Okay. She was at the road. Now what? There were no signs, just a long and empty road with a double yellow line down the middle. And an impressive set of skid marks. She followed them back down the road to see if she could determine how she’d gone off the road in the first place. Maybe that would jog her memory.

She was worried. Surely a normal concussion, if that’s what she had, wouldn’t have wiped out her entire memory. Just the memory of the crash. So why couldn’t she remember anything about herself? How could she forget a husband, a child?

Maybe she’d stolen the car, and nothing of what was inside belonged to her. Maybe she was a jealous ex-wife who was trying to stick it to her smarty-pants ex-husband. There were too many maybes. But she didn’t feel vindictive. 

When she reached the point in the road where the skidmarks started, she saw a pile of brown pellets. She didn’t know her name, but she knew that a deer had crossed there and that was probably what precipitated her car going off the road. She’d swerved to avoid hitting it, successfully since there was no evidence of an injured animal anywhere.

Would a criminal try to avoid hitting a deer?

Now she had another decision to make. Start walking in the direction she’d driven from, or start walking in the direction she’d been headed toward?

“Retrace your steps,” she muttered to herself.

The bag of ice hadn’t melted, so the store she’d gotten it from couldn’t be that far down the road. Could be they’d remember her there. At the very least, they could call the police and get her some help. There was no telling what might lie ahead of her, or how far it might be.

On the off chance someone came looking for her, she used the chalk to leave a sign on the road. She’d intended to make an arrow, pointing in the right direction, but somehow the straight line turned all curvy and it ended up being a question mark instead. She stood back and looked at it with a critical eye. Why had she drawn that? It didn’t make any sense, but at the same time it felt _right_.

If she couldn’t rely on her memory, she’d rely on her instincts. 

She pocketed the chalk and started walking, eating a Power Bar to keep her strength up. She’d find help. And then everything would start making sense again.

It was slow going. The more time passed, the more she was aware of aches and pains that had to be from the crash; she wasn’t old enough to have earned them otherwise. Not that she knew how old she was, just how young she’d looked.

_Never underestimate the brain behind the baby face._

She stopped walking and tried to track that thought, that foreign voice, down to a concrete memory. But it was tenuous and almost immediately dissipated. That had to be a good sign, though. Right?

There wasn’t much traffic on the road. Only one car passed and didn’t seem to pay any attention to the bloody-headed woman limping along the shoulder. There were no houses, nothing but leafy green trees and grassy clearings. She thought it was very probable that she’d see a bear or a deer before she saw an actual person. There were occasional speed zone signs but nothing that indicated the name of a town.

Wasn’t California mostly cities and freeways and beaches? Maybe Rodney McKay was visiting Jeannie Miller in Canada.

“Maybe I’m Canadian,” she said. She wasn’t sure she sounded Canadian, though. “Sorry. About. I’m from Canada, eh.”

No. She definitely didn’t have the right accent. It sounded more…New York?

“I’m from New York and my name is…my name is…”

_Stop calling me that! You know I hate it!_

Oh, no. Did she have an embarrassing name? Or maybe someone had given her a dumb nickname. She’d take either one, to be honest. It was freaking her out, not knowing who she was. Not having an identity. Maybe she could guess her name.

“Amy. Jenny. Kelly. Susan. Claudia. Gertrude. Bonnie. Amber. Seirra. Leah. Sharon. Kristy. Veronica. Diana.”

Hmm. That last one sounded a little familiar. Was that her name? Diana McKay? Maybe, but it didn’t feel right, and feelings were all she had to go on.

After walking for what felt like forever, something finally loomed on the horizon. And not a moment too soon, because she’d taken the last of the Tylenol and it wasn’t doing much for her headache.

Bud’s Convenience was a two-pump gas station and general store. She thought of the ice in the back of the SUV, certain it must’ve come from the big ice chest next to the front door. The whole place was giving her a strong sense of déjà vu. 

The bell over the door tinkled when she went inside, but the scruffy-looking guy behind the counter didn’t look up from his phone. He had one earbud in his ear, the other hanging down, and the tag on his shirt said Ramon.

“Hello?”

“Help you?” Ramon asked, still not looking up.

She leaned over to take a look at what was holding the guy’s attention but pulled back sharply when she saw naked body parts. Eeew. She waved her hand across the phone screen to get Ramon’s attention.

“Excuse me, hello?”

Ramon looked up and immediately recoiled. “Jesus, lady! What the hell happened to you?”

“Is it that bad?” she asked, feeling self-conscious. She hadn’t really gotten a good look at herself; the little bit she saw in the rearview mirror had been bad enough.

“It’s worse. You come back for your wallet?”

She felt a rush of excitement, momentarily making her forget her aches and pains. “I left my wallet here?”

“Dude who came in after you found it in with the ice.” 

Ramon reached under the counter and pulled out a light blue, quilted purse. It didn’t look familiar, but that didn’t matter because her name would be inside. Her driver’s license, which would also tell her where she lived.

“Are you sure it’s mine?”

Ramon shrugged. “No-one else came in this morning besides you and the other dude.”

Yes! It had to be hers, it just had to be. She reached for it, but Ramon pulled it away.

“You have to verify your identity before I can give it to you. Store policy.”

“But…I can’t do that. I hit my head when my car went off the road. I don’t remember who I am.”

Ramon looked at the wound on her head and grimaced. “That sucks.”

“Can’t you just tell me the name on the license in there?”

“Store policy.”

She planted both hands on the counter and leaned in, feeling flushed with indignation. “Listen up, Ramon. I’m sure you’re a very nice guy, but I’ve had a pretty terrible day so far. I hit a tree with a car that may or may not be mine, and I can’t remember anything about who I am. There might be a family somewhere wondering where I am. A husband, a baby. Or I could be one of the FBI’s ten most-wanted and your life could be in danger right now. I don’t know because _I can’t remember_!”

Ramon’s eyes were wide as saucers. “Ma’am –”

“All I want to know is my own name, do you understand me? I’m not looking to steal anyone’s identity or their money or anything else that might be in that wallet. So just TELL ME MY NAME!” Yelling was a mistake. The pressure already pounding away inside her skull rose to a crescendo and Ramon started to get wavery and dim. “And maybe call an ambulance.”

She slid to the floor, back pressed against the counter, as all the strength went out of her legs. She could hear Ramon on the phone with 911, and then something dropped into her lap. A California driver’s license, with a yellow bear in the corner.

 _Beatrix Jones_.

“I waited all this time for Beatrix?” she muttered. But she curled her fingers around the license even as the darkness overcame her.

*o*o*o*

_“I knew I’d forget something. John!” Rodney bellowed._

_“Diaper duty!” John shouted back._

_“What do you need?” Trixie asked. Jupe was outside helping Evan get the grill going and making sure the kiddie pool was at just the right the temperature._

_“Oh. Uh, we need a bag of ice.”_

_“That’s it? I can go and get it for you.”_

_Rodney looked surprised at the offer. “Are you sure?”_

_“There’s a convenience store not far from here, right? Jupe and I saw it when we drove in. It won’t take me long.”_

_Rodney insisted on giving her a couple of dollars to cover the cost, and the keys to his car because Jupe’s old mustang was in the garage so John could tinker with it later._

_Trixie went out the sliding doors to the deck. Jupe and Evan were playing cornhole, one of the games that had been set up for the adults. The backyard was festooned with balloons and picnic tables and a pinata in the shape of a Minion hanging from one of the trees that kept the yard shady. It was Isaac’s second birthday and all they needed was ice and for the guests to arrive._

_“I’m making a run to the store for ice,” Trixie told Jupe._

_“You want me to come?” he asked distractedly, lining up his next shot with the beanbag in his hand._

_“Nope. I’ll be five minutes. Ten minutes, tops.”_

_She gave him a quick peck on the lips, pleased to see how relaxed he was. Jupiter had decided to do that Ancestry DNA thing a few months ago, and the report had come back with some surprising information, including the name of a distant relative. Rodney McKay. Jupe had reached out and started email correspondence with Rodney, who was some degree of cousin, and that had culminated in their being invited to Isaac McKay-Sheppard’s birthday party._

_Trixie was so happy that her husband’s family was growing. He’d been orphaned as a young boy and raised by his aunt and uncle. She knew how much family meant to him. Little did he know his family would be growing again, in about eight months. Trixie was waiting for just the right time to tell him._

_“Back soon!” she called as she went around the side of the house to the driveway, and Rodney’s fancy green SUV. It took her a minute or two to adjust the seat properly – she was much shorter than Rodney – and then she was on her way._

_She was really looking forward to the party._

*o*o*o*

Her first thought when she woke up was that the ice was probably melted. She didn’t know what that meant, but she found it unexpectedly troubling. And then she realized she was in a hospital bed and that kind of eclipsed everything else.

There was an IV line running to the back of her hand and an oximeter on her finger. Her aches and pains, especially the one in her head, were very much diminished, which she was thankful for.

“Beatrix Jones,” she whispered to herself. The license was gone, but she remembered what it said. Not Mrs. Rodney McKay after all, unless it had happened so recently she hadn’t had a chance to legally change her name yet.

_I love you, Mrs. Jones._

_I love you, too, Mr. Jones._

She closed her eyes, trying to hold on to that flash of memory. In her mind’s eye she could see the shadow of a man, stocky and dark-haired. Mr. Jones. Her husband. She tried desperately to think of his first name, but it slipped away.

“I’m Beatrix Jones and I have a husband who loves me.”

She nodded to herself. What else did she know? She was presumably friends with someone named Rodney McKay, who had a young child. He’d let her use his car. To go and get ice? Why would they need a bag of ice? For a party, maybe. Another mental image, this time of a little boy with big blue eyes wearing a shirt with a big number two on the front.

“Isaac’s birthday!” she blurted out and opened her eyes. She’d gone to get ice for Isaac’s birthday and that deer had jumped out in the road right in front of her. She wasn’t used to Rodney’s car and overcompensated as she swerved to miss hitting the animal.

Her name was Trixie and her husband was Jupiter and they were expecting…

Trixie looked down at herself, suddenly fearful. She pressed both hands over her stomach. Was her tiny baby still in there? Or had the accident taken it away?

A nurse came into the room. “Well, there you are! I’m glad you’re back with us, Beatrix.”

“It’s Trixie.”

“That’s good to hear. The EMTs said you were having trouble remembering your name. I’m Margaret and I’m just going to check your vitals, okay?”

Margaret had a very soft touch as she checked Trixie’s pulse manually. She made adjustments to the IV – mild painkillers – and made Trixie follow her finger with just her eyes.

“You have a concussion, which is no surprise given how hard your head impacted the steering wheel. Some bruising that you’re going to feel for a while. You were very lucky you didn’t break anything.”

Trixie nodded automatically. Yes, she was glad she was otherwise unharmed, but she really needed to know about the baby. And at the same time, she was afraid to ask. She was afraid the news would be bad.

Nurse Margaret put her hand on top of Trixie’s, which was still resting on her stomach. “Your baby is just fine.”

“Baby?” a strangled-sounding voice said from the doorway.

Trixie looked up. “Jupe.”

Everything that had happened that day – the confusion and the fear and the frustration – crashed down around her all at once and she burst into tears. Jupiter was at her side in an instant, hugging her tighter than was comfortable. She wasn’t going to complain. She just hugged him back, and for the first time since she woke up in Rodney’s car, she felt settled and safe and finally like _herself_.

“I was waiting for a good time to tell you,” she sniffled into Jupe’s shoulder. “This isn’t what I had in mind.”

Jupiter pulled back and cradled her face in his hands. He gave her an intense once-over. “Concussion? That’s a nasty laceration.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I didn’t know who I was,” Trixie explained. “I didn’t know the code to my phone.”

Jupiter sat back on the bed but didn’t let go of her hands. “Interesting. And yet you still knew to leave me a clue.”

“Clue? What clue?”

“The question mark.”

Trixie had forgotten about that. Jupe had his own mystery-solving club when he was a kid, just like she had, and they’d used question marks as their logo and also as a way to mark clues.

“You found the car? I thought the hospital called you.” She wasn’t sure which scenario was the better one. Jupe must’ve been really upset when he saw what state the SUV was in. Trixie knew she would have been frantic if their situations had been reversed.

“Rodney and I went looking for you when you didn’t come back. The convenience store clerk told us he’d called an ambulance for you. It was upsetting.”

Trixie pulled him back in for another hug. Jupiter was close-mouthed about his feelings most of the time, but she knew how to read the truth of it in his expressions and body language. He’d been scared. He’d confessed to her, once, after too much wine, that he was worried she’d get snatched away just like his parents had.

“We’re really having a baby?”

Trixie laughed. “We really are. A little Belden-Jones baby.”

“That’s terrifying,” Jupiter said, but he had a big grin on his face.

*o*o*o*

Trixie had to spend the night in the hospital, just for observation, and then it was back to John and Rodney’s house where they had her ensconced on the couch like the Queen of England, surrounded by pillows with her feet propped up on the ottoman.

“We saved you a piece of cake,” Jennifer said, handing Trixie a plate of chocolate cake and a fork. “You missed a pretty messy food fight.”

Jennifer was Isaac’s birth mother; she’d been John and Rodney’s surrogate. She’d come back to help with the rest of the clean-up, and make sure Trixie was doing okay.

“John started it,” Rodney said. He was sitting opposite the couch in one of the big easy chairs. “He’s mentally Isaac’s age, though.” 

“Hey!” John protested. He handed Trixie a glass of water and then perched on the arm of Rodney’s chair, one arm around the other man’s shoulders. “Kids are supposed to be messy with cake.”

“For the first birthday, not all of them.”

“He had fun.”

Trixie knew that was true. Rodney had already made a slideshow of birthday pictures on the computer and had captured some video of the food fight. Little Isaac had been laughing like a maniac the entire time.

She wondered what her baby’s first birthday would be like.

“You’ll be getting a big fat settlement from the car company,” Rodney said to Trixie. “My people are already working on it. That SUV was highly rated for safety. The airbag should’ve gone off. I’m never buying another one of their vehicles again, I can tell you that.”

John grinned. “You should see what he can do with a Yelp review. It’s brutal.”

“The extra money will be nice to have,” Jennifer said. “I heard the good news, that you and Jupiter are expecting. Congratulations!”

“Thanks. Still trying to get used to the idea, really. Moms is going to flip out when I tell her.”

“First grandchild?”

“No, but as she’s always telling me, it’s different for mothers and daughters. And I’m her only daughter.”

The sliding doors opened, ushering in a wailing Isaac, who was being carried by Evan and followed by an anxious looking Jupiter. Rodney was on his feet in a flash.

“What happened?”

“Fell and scraped up his elbow a little,” Evan explained. Trixie still wasn’t sure what his exact role in the family was. Friend slash nanny? Attentive uncle?

Isaac reached out for Rodney, big tears rolling down his red, blotchy face. From what Trixie could see, his elbow just had a little rash on it.

“Daddy!” he cried, burying his face in the crook of Rodney’s neck.

Like a well-oiled machine, Evan retrieved the first aid kit from the bathroom while Jennifer fetched a juice box and John went in search of Isaac’s favorite plushy. They had the little boy settled in no time, John telling him how brave he was while Evan made sure that little scrape was cleaned out and had a Batman bandaid covering it.

Trixie looked up at Jupiter, who was watching everything intently. No doubt he was storing that information for later use, when it was their own baby crying over a little bump. She wondered what kind of parents they’d be.

“Trissie. Look!” Isaac came over to show her his elbow. 

“You’re as brave as Batman,” she said, and gave the elbow a little kiss.

“See?” Isaac offered his injury for Jupiter’s inspection.

“Yes. Very good,” Jupiter said, clearly ill-at-ease. He wasn’t used to being around such young children. But he gave Isaac a high-five before Isaac ran off to his room to play, injury all but forgotten. 

“Toddlers,” John said with a grin. “The fun never ends. You’ll find out.”

**One Year and Eight Months Later**

“This is the best part,” John said, his phone already out and ready to record.

Trixie was right there next to him with her own phone. This one had face recognition software, so she’d never have to worry about not being able to remember her lock code again. Jupiter had also given her a gold bracelet on her birthday, engraved with her name. Just to be on the safe side.

Speaking of Jupiter, he put a plastic plate holding a giant piece of cake in front of Ellie. Brave man that he was, he didn’t even back out of the way. Ellie looked at Trixie, and then at John, who was miming smashing his hand into the cake for her benefit. 

“You don’t have to egg her on, you know,” Rodney criticized. “Girls are more delicate than boys, she won’t want to…oh.”

Ellie attacked the cake as if it had personally offended her, and Trixie filmed every moment of it. It had been a lovely cake, too, with little horses on it and her name spelled out in purple icing: Elara Lynn.

When the cake had been well and truly decimated, Jupiter pulled Ellie out of the high chair and set her down in the grass, where the hose was waiting. So were all the cousins, including Isaac. Jupiter obligingly hosed them all down while they ran around and squealed and screamed and generally had a good time.

“He’s a really good dad,” Trixie’s mom said. “You’re both doing a wonderful job with her.”

“Thanks, Moms.”

Trixie was pleased that so much of the family had made the trip out for Ellie’s first birthday. They didn’t get together nearly as much as she would’ve liked, but most of her immediate family was still in New York. The Bob-Whites, her old friends, were more frequent visitors because most of them had left home for destinations farther West.

The party progressed and then it was time for presents. Aunt Martha kept a running list of which gift came from which person, so Trixie could do thank you notes later. But there was one present that no-one laid claim to. 

“Does anyone know who got this for Ellie?” Trixie asked, holding the tiny deerstalker hat aloft. There wasn’t a card attached.

No-one seemed to know who’d given Ellie the pint-sized hat, clearly an homage to Sherlock Holmes and the solving of mysteries. Well, that was just fine with Trixie. She looked over at Jupiter and he looked back at her, a very familiar expression on his face.

“We have a mystery to solve, First Investigator,” she said.

“So it would seem, Madam Co-President,” Jupe replied.

“Are they speaking in code?” Rodney asked. “What does any of that mean?”

“It means the game is afoot,” replied Trixie’s brother Brian. “Best to just stay out of their way.”

Trixie very carefully checked the hat for clues before she plunked it down on her daughter’s head. She had to admit Ellie looked adorable in it.

She’d solved the mystery of her own identity. Surely she could solve the Mystery of the Mysterious Deerstalker.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** I’d written a police procedural and was all set to post it for the challenge when I realized I hadn’t made the minimum wordcount. Nooo! I had a couple of false starts after that, trying to decide what to do. Making this story about Trixie really solidified things, because who better to solve a mystery than the Schoolgirl Shamus? ::grins:: Extra fluff courtesy of making sure I had the right wordcount this time.
> 
> Elara's name is a little bit of a joke. Because Elara is one of Jupiter's moons. So...kind of had to do it. I have no regrets!
> 
> This fic is dedicated to vanillafluffy, who has made me excited about Trixie and Jupiter all over again with her wonderful fics. I would also like to thank nagi_schwarz for the speedy beta and encouragement. You’re the best!


End file.
